3:10 to Yuma

A western set in a parched Arizona town. Dan is a rancher. There has been no rain for two years, his animals have no water, and he cannot find the money to bring some. He witnesses a robbery. The stagecoach is stopped, a man is killed, and Dan watches without doing anything; his sons are beside him. The robbers leave but their leader stays in town. Ben Wade lingers to spend time with a woman and is caught. He has to be taken to Yuma. The train leaves at ten past three and nobody wants the job. Dan takes it for two hundred dollars. From there the film is a story of waiting. A hotel room, a locked door, two men watching the clock, and the gang gathering outside. Wade talks. He offers Dan money, mentions his family, finds his fear, and turns the room into a language. What the narrative is interested in is not the law but standing: Dan stays not out of duty but because his sons saw him as a coward on the first day. The relationship between the two men is the centre. Wade does not threaten, he persuades, and the narrative leaves it unclear which of them is the stronger. The source is a short story by Elmore Leonard. Glenn Ford is playing against his usual part here. An actor who had mostly played the good man until then is the robber in this film. Glenn Ford, Van Heflin, Felicia Farr and Richard Jaeckel are in the cast. Delmer Daves directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes westerns that rest on talk and build tension out of a location. Who it is not for: anyone looking for action; the film takes place almost entirely in one room and there is very little gunfire.